08 September 2013

Withdrawn and Introspective

I've written a lot about catharsis. I just went to look for a blog post specifically on the subject, but I realized in my search that more often than not, my blog posts are rambling catharsis.

A previous night I had a beautiful moment of catharsis that I didn't even know I was in need of. It was at the bottom of this bridge right here.

The Legacy Bridge

It was a conversation of several components. Friends. Relationships. Decisions. The impossibility of the future.

In the end, it was simply beautiful.

In the realm of friends and relationships, it was more of a bleed of feelings and it felt good to have a sense of resolution, albeit it somewhat tentative.

But in the realm of decisions and the future, the resolution was highly unexpected. I've told myself what I want to do over and over again. If you read some of my older posts, I was quite clear in what I wanted to see in my future.

A night with friends out on the campus

It is somewhat fitting, as I am writing from my Architecture class, to bring in a few architecture terms. What I wanted to be would be called a signature architect. Someone who created a building that was novel, zeitgeist, reactionary and powerful.

When I made the decision not to go to New York City, the idea of being a signature architect was thrown out the window. I was turning down the chance to attend a top 10 undergraduate architecture school, and realistically if I wasn't in a top 10 school, I would never be a signature architect. At least not the kind I was envisioning.

In my first two weeks at the University of Utah, that view has completely changed. And it wasn't until last night that I realized that in so many words.

If you have somehow escaped my constant tweets and facebook posts, I am absolutely in love with my Urban Ecology class. Each time we meet, I think to myself, "This is exactly what I want to do with the rest of my life."

As I was talking last night, I finally put together a few quotes from two of my professors.

My Urban Ecology Professor said, "You are going to learn how to heal our planet and society with the buildings you design."

My Architecture Professor said, "Architecture is more than functional utility or structural display-- it is the vessel that perpetually and inescapably shapes human life."

and, "An architect's goal is to be relevant. Forever."

Putting that together, I think what I want out of my life is to make something eternally relevant and more importantly healing and uniting.

That is to be my goal.

I feel like my melted rainbow scripture highlighters and in my Book of Mormon is a somewhat good representation of my duality.